Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Twitter says it was just an accident that caused the microblogging giant to let advertisers use private information to better target their marketing materials at users.
The social networking giant on Tuesday admitted to an "error" that let advertisers have access to the private information customers had given Twitter in order to place additional security protections on their accounts.
"We recently discovered that when you provided an email address or phone number for safety or security purposes (for example, two-factor authentication) this data may have inadvertently been used for advertising purposes, specifically in our Tailored Audiences and Partner Audiences advertising system," Twitter said.
"When an advertiser uploaded their marketing list, we may have matched people on Twitter to their list based on the email or phone number the Twitter account holder provided for safety and security purposes. This was an error and we apologize."
Twitter assures users that no "personal" information was shared, though we're not sure what Twitter would consider "personal information" if your phone number and email address do not meet the bar.
"We cannot say with certainty how many people were impacted by this, but in an effort to be transparent, we wanted to make everyone aware. No personal data was ever shared externally with our partners or any other third parties," the mea cupa reads.
"As of September 17, we have addressed the issue that allowed this to occur and are no longer using phone numbers or email addresses collected for safety or security purposes for advertising."
[...] Aside from being a violation of privacy and potential legal liability for Twitter, the incident will have the added effect of making users less safe by discouraging them from using phone numbers and email verification as additional levels of security.
All in all, this is a bad look for Twitter that isn't likely to go away any time soon.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @05:45AM (4 children)
This is from the water-is-wet dept.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @10:44AM (3 children)
More like the Planeloads of Cash Department. Just like the Planeloads of Cash Obama gave to Iran.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @12:07PM (2 children)
You mean Obama gave Iran their own money. I guess you didn't, wouldn't or couldn't read that far.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @05:45PM
Kinda like that $20 in your wallet is my money. Please return it
(Score: 2) by Captival on Friday October 11 2019, @02:41AM
Libtards are always so eager to insist it was the worldwide #1 terror sponsor's own money, so it was perfectly acceptable to give it to them. Never mind why so many previous administrations, both Democrat and Republican, thought it better not to do so. The Muslim in Chief can't possibly be seen not showing favor to his special guys. After all, the most beautiful sound in the whole world is the Muslim Call to Prayer. So you just have to give the lying terrorists yet another gigantic bundle of US cash and lie to America about it not being a ransom, even though both the hostages and the Iranians openly admitting it was. When you have the MSM cheerleading everything you do, foreign collusion and interfering in sovereign nations' elections is just no big deal! Ask Israel!
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @06:39AM (4 children)
Fuch, double chocolate carmel Fuch! OMG! My Data! My Details, My stuff? Wait, Twitter? Wheew! No one is on Twitter anymore, it is too crowded, and the only person on there any more is that dude from the "Apprentice", who is about to get, "fired". So predictable. Why would I watch?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @07:35AM (3 children)
Plenty of leftists are roaming the Twitter as well, so they can take potshots at Oranj Man and coordinate their street violence.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @07:49AM (2 children)
1st and Pine, at 4pm, tomorrow. Bring bike locks and other things to scare the alt-right.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @05:56PM
I hear milkshakes get them out of the yard!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @09:04PM
They like the 2nd Amendment....
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @10:09AM (2 children)
... why do websites need a *phone* number?
Paranoia and suspicion are one thing, but, now we really do know.
They collect your contact information to sell.
Thanks for the confirmation, Twitter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @02:37PM
To send you a 2FA code, of course. Don't you know it's more secure than a password? What you know, and what you have!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @09:37PM
Well, almost unique; I'd guess that ost people don't have more than one or two. Making it far more unique, and useful (ie trackable) to them than a throw away email address.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @12:55PM
So what value does Twitter bring?
A p2p app could move the messages around.
A blockchain could provide security and authentication.
There's no call center for personal service.
They take value from their users with stuff like this.
I guess the value to their users is that their users are there?
A phone network could say the same thing.
But they are required to interoperate with other phone networks.
The idea that you have to be on Twitter to use these messages might be something that should be fixed.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Thursday October 10 2019, @01:26PM
When they wanted my phone number to log in I said f&/( twitter, it will be remembered as the iteration of the web that almost destroyed the world, unless it does.
This was not an accident, funny they even try to say that.
Shows what they really think of the internet.
Boycott them and everything like it is the only option of a sane person, but we are living in a mania so strap in.
Even colbert reifying the whole thing by actually broadcasting the absurdist tweets is, for me, no longer funny at all, it's like laughing at our impending doom even if otherwise done in the best possible taste. This shows us where we are, even if you wanted to try to do a late night show without rebroadcasting the rantings of a zionist puppet and madman, it would seem like something was missing.
Further study along these lines will be rewarded.
thesesystemsarefailing.net so obviously
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @01:45PM (3 children)
If you actually live in San Francisco and actually go stand around in front of the addresses of these dot-coms and watch who goes in and out you will quickly see that the United States has been invaded by people from India whom are running everything and making all the important decisions - like, who to hire.
I figured this out after I drove down south for a robotics competition, listened to local radio stations, and badmouthed San Jose FM radio station KSJO for having been taken over by H1Bs - it's been turned in 'Radio Bollywood', and the music isn't bad but the announcers talk like they have a mouth full of marbles and are incomprehensible to the rest of us English speakers - and found my Twitter account LOCKED, with NO WARNING.
Now, these dumb Twitter fucks keep sending me emails asking me why I haven't posted recently?
My read on it is that the automation put in place by the people who built the infrastructure continues to work even though they have all been replaced by foreigners. And so the technology works fine, while the policies get wierder and wierder.
Twitter's just as bad as Facebook. It attracts attention whores like a Klieg light attracts moths. And now, control freaks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klieg_light [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_freak [wikipedia.org]
Twitter thinks they are the be-all and end-all of 21st century communications but I'm pretty sure I can do as good or better with a xerox machine, some gloves, a paint brush and a can of condensed milk.
Added advantage: every single person who reads MY handbills is a local.
A Raspberry Pi is $35. A network cable is $5. An operating system and Apache or Nginx installation are free. I don't need these dumb whores to get my message out OR to take my message online.
They are digging their own corporate grave by converting themselves from common carriers, to content editors.
They particularly hated it when I did this:
date && set TWIT=182 ; head -c 10240 /dev/urandom | strings | tr -d "\n\t" | cut -b 1-${TWIT} | tr -d "\n" > /tmp/key && head -c 10240 /dev/urandom | strings | tr -d '\n\t' | cut -b 1-${TWIT} | openssl bf -a -salt -pass file:/tmp/key | tr -d "\n" && echo "" && rm -f /tmp/key
~childo
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @04:11PM (1 child)
Hi
can you please tell us what American or Canadian company (to make it easy--just focus on 2 of the 3 countries located in North America) that actually *do not* overly utilize H1Bs?
i work at a place that laid off thousands and sent most of that work to HCL. they didnt tell the employees that is what was happening, tho, because that looks bad. instead everyone had documentation to do and you want to finally use your vacation time right, then train this helpful guy. one day there was a large meeting and entire floors of the building were cleared out. for a short while the desks were filled with h1b replacements. they just got bussed in. it was almost surreal. they came in after everyone that got kicked were gone.
due to the USA government stuff, the h1bs or as executives call them, experts they couldnt find anywhere else, were mostly eliminated shortly after the employees were. too costly as well i heard, to have someone local and demanding a living wage when so few of them were retained. just long enough to knowledge transfer the already transfered knowledge. because of the h1b thing, it changed tactics and the higher tier jobs that couldnt go to unskilled resources instead were placed in Canada as a "near sourcing effort".
the other jobs are all being done by young Indian men and women that won't deviate from the script because they don't understand what they are doing, and once they do, they leave for a more highly paid job utilizing the skills they picked up from seeing first hand how production systems work. thats what they told me anyway while trying to learn my job.
as for me I am just waiting for my turn to come up. from what i understand, a few people have timed a revenge but chances are if theres a failure it'll get blamed on someone that isnt an executive, so theres no real harm in everything getting ruined.
so yeah what jobs do you know of that could employ holdouts like me? ones that arent nearsourcing in the near future of course.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @06:52PM
Why would a Canadian company need H-1B visas [wikipedia.org]? I don't think it is even possible for a Canadian company to get them, presumably only US employers are eligible.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @06:00PM
Haha look at this sucker, actually made a twitter account and is so angry about brown people he has to hate on any accents.
You are the type of low-key bigot that is out of fashion. You had your day in the sun with Trump getting elected, we can leave out the irony of you needing Russia's also bigoted help to get it, but now that fantasy is done.
Hating your fellow humans for stupid reasons like you listed is just pathetic. Don't be so insecure, be more friendly, you'll be surprised how much nicer life is when you're not a dick to people.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @06:22PM (1 child)
We requested your email and phone number so we could receive large wads of cash from advertisers.
We just got caught using your email and phone number to receive large wads of cash from advertisers.
We are now trying to spin this as inadvertent or an "error" so you won't abandon us en-mass (and therefore place at risk any future wads of cash heading our way).
We are now giving you a fake apology in hopes you'll believe it and not leave us en-mass (and place at risk those future wads of cash).
Oh, did I mention we received lots of wads of cash already......
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 10 2019, @09:11PM
And remember when we share it with Obama it is a new way of running a campaign.